Happy New Year everyone!
I am back from my hiatus, refreshed and ready to start 2023 with a bang!
A top priority for me is organization. It was very difficult for me to decorate for Christmas this year because all my decorations were in various spaces around the house. After our house renovation, there was drywall dust still lingering and it made it difficult for me to go into our crawl space or the basement because of my allergies. This left my husband and sons the task of putting away the Christmas decorations last year (which I was very grateful for) but it resulted in me not knowing where anything was. I ended up opening a lot of boxes searching for items. Some I found, and others I did not.
This actually set the stage for a Christmas organization that I have been dreaming about for a long time. I know other people dream of exotic places with half naked men or women serving them Pina Coladas. I dream of organized spaces with everything labeled. Problem, I am not sure, Freud might have a field day, but it makes me happy!
This is the crawl space I was talking about that we gained from the addition. You can see how haphazard everything is. It is a large dry space that is perfect for storing items we do not use every day. My plan is to pull everything out of the crawl space and organize each box. When I am done, I will know what is in each box and have a designated area to store them grouped as seasonal, household, outdoors etc.
When I was decorating this wreath for the window in my dining room, I had trouble finding everything I needed. I usually store picks, battery powered lights, and ribbon separately. Which is fine, but I had to go through all the boxes in order to find what I needed.
To store it this year, first, I took everything off the wreath.
Then I took the picks and battery powered lights and put each in individual plastic bags.
I then placed the wreath along with the other items in a storage bag.
Closed the bag.
I bought this instamatic camera to help with my organization I (you will see what I mean in a minute). It takes a picture and spits it out instantly. Some of you might remember these when they were popular before we had color printers and cameras on our phones. They can still be pretty useful even today!
And finally put a photo I took from my instamatic camera on the outside of the bag. It shows me exactly what and where it was the previous year.
Next on list were the rest of the decorations in the family room and dining room.
I broke down the chandelier first separating each of the items and repeated the process with the other vignettes placing all the pieces on the dining room table.
I put the smaller items in plastic bags.
I placed the larger pieces on the bottom of a tote then filled it with the rest until everything was loaded.
Prior to breaking everything down I took pictures of each vignette with my instamatic camera. I took the pictures and tucked them inside a photo album sheet and taped it to the side of the bin.
It took longer than it usually does to break down my decorations but next year I hope it not only makes finding the decorations easier but putting them away as well. I guess we will find out next year!
I still have the front room where the Christmas tree and mantle are. I will tackle that next week because I want to enjoy the Christmas tree for one more week.